Doctors reject Welsh Government pay offer
Doctors have rejected an offer from the Welsh Government of a 5% pay rise.
The British Medical Association Cymru confirmed yesterday evening that they would not be accepting the uplift for consultants, junior doctors and specialty and associate staff doctors on the 2008 contract.
The offer would have included no uplift for those on the 2021 contract.
Plaid Cymru have said the pay rise offer by the Welsh Government was “little more than a sticking plaster” over underfunding.
BMA committees will meet within the next two weeks to decide whether to ballot for industrial action.
The Council Chair for BMA Cymru Wales, Iona Collins said the offer “did not comply with Welsh government’s formal commitment to the principle of full pay restoration”.
She said: “A 5% uplift represents yet another pay cut in real terms and serves only to increase the losses faced by doctors, after more than a decade’s worth of sub-inflation pay awards”.
Responding to the news, Plaid Cymru spokesperson for health and care, Mabon ap Gwynfor MS said: “The reality of this pay offer is that doctors were being asked to accept a further fall in living standards.
“Understandably, BMA Cymru Wales has rejected an offer that was little more than a sticking plaster over the deep wound caused by years of underfunding.”
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The Welsh Government will have to increase this pay offer. It would be politically crazy not to. Although funding from the UK Gov is not enough the Welsh public will not accept that as a reason not to provide doctors with more money, ongoing industrial action and to match the pay offers in Scotland or England. Hard choices will have to be made and Plaid may have to give up on some of their wish list with the Welsh Government to divert money for this cause.